


The Thrill of Defeat

by Fierceawakening



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Femdom, First Time, Hand Jobs, Light Dom/sub, Oral Sex, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:08:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25656430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fierceawakening/pseuds/Fierceawakening
Summary: Young Corvus has tried for a long time to keep his feelings for Proxima secret. They are improper, and besides, it would crush him to learn that she doesn't feel the same. But one day in sparring, she defeats him, and he can't quite hide how much he likes losing.
Relationships: Corvus Glaive/Proxima Midnight
Comments: 13
Kudos: 11





	The Thrill of Defeat

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, notes... on this thing. Okay. *breathes*
> 
> Thanks to Sidetic for beta.
> 
> I'm following the characterization I developed for all these characters in Children of Thanos, just posting this separately so there's a separate container for explicit smut. Which means things like "stuff in pointy brackets is in Titan."
> 
> And also means I'm going with "all of the Order are siblings, not just Gamora and Nebula," which means this is technically adoptive sibling incest. So it gets a warning. That's not especially relevant to the story, though, so if you'd rather pretend they're not you can do that. I hope you all know I don't think you should go boink your siblings, but you know? Some people apparently need this spelled out for them. 
> 
> Also mostly because of backstory yoinking, I'm not completely certain of their ages here. To make things fit in continuity with the other fics, it's possible one or both are slightly underage. Again, not meant to be a story about that, just meant to be two teenagers who really like each other experimenting. Make up numbers in your head and have fun, friends.

Proxima is laughing. Too loudly.

Corvus shouldn’t mind it. His blood-brother is one of the Warbodied. They make noise too, growls and rumbles of amusement. And his blood-brother has always been with him. Even in the time Before, a part of his life he can hardly remember, his brother has been there, a mighty armored shadow that goes where he goes and meets every danger with the roar of a born warrior. He is used to noise.

Proxima is loud, but it has never bothered him. Now he feels his cheeks heat and wishes his hood were deep enough he could truly hide his face in it.

“So,” she says, turning a corner, “I’ve finally bested you.”

“It is not so surprising,” he says. “You are swift and determined.”

 _And strong._ He does not say it. He is not sure he trusts his voice. He remembers the shock of impact when he hit the mat, the way it knocked his breath out of him.

And what else it did. Is that why she is laughing? She must have noticed. She was right beside him…

“You trained me,” she says, and looks down at the bag of sparring gear she’s carrying. “Why shouldn’t it take me a while to catch up?”

“Lord Thanos trained you, as he trained all of us. I only… noticed, sometimes, when you needed practice.”

“I was a child. And I was frightened.”

 _So were we all._ He wants to say it. To put out his hand, perhaps, and touch her shoulder. But that would be too forward. And she goes on speaking anyway, and he does not wish to interrupt. “I’d still be sulking in a corner somewhere without your help. Hiding from everyone. Not talking unless Lord Thanos commanded it.” She chuckles. “I certainly wouldn’t be winning in the sparring ring.”

He shakes his head. “I am only a year older. And I was frightened also, when Lord Thanos claimed me.”

“Yeah, but you might as well be twelve years older. You got used to it right away. Made yourself… made yourself useful, like the Maw says to do.”

He nods. She is not wrong. But she makes it sound like it was easy.

“You’re… calm. I’m not.” She stops at one of the doors.

“No, you are not. You have never been. But you fight fiercely.” He smiles. “My back still aches.” He wishes he could tell her that it feels good. That he is proud.

But that is too strange. He lost. He should be indignant, his pride wounded. She should wish he could bellow as his brother does and demand a second bout. It is true he wants another. But when he tries to think of this, he only imagines her slamming him to the mat again and looking down at him and smiling.

The door leads, he knows, to her quarters. “Did you want to come in? Put your gear down and rest a moment?”

If the stars or the saints have mercy, the wall will swallow him. As he has well learned by now, neither do. “I… should not.”

She shrugs. _“ <Suit yourself.>” _He hears her mutter something as she turns back to the door.

He thinks, vividly and suddenly, about how the ache in his back will feel if he sits with it in his quarters alone. He hears a rumbling echo and realizes his own throat has made the sound.

“Hm?” She looks over her shoulder at him.

He does not like the thought of her turning away again, so he forces his stubborn tongue to form words. “I think I will come in.”

###

“So, what was that all about?” Proxima says.

She blinks at him and he looks down, hiding within his hood. She sounds… like she always does, and that is worse than even her anger would be. That she knows him, and trusts him, and acts perfectly familiar, as though his heart has not lodged itself inside his throat.

“I… what was…?”

“You almost didn’t come in.”

He should say something. But no words come.

“You’ve mentored me since we were small. You came to me when I was silent and afraid, and welcomed me. You didn’t avoid me then. Now you’re shy?”

“You bested me,” he says.

“Now you’re embarrassed?” She laughs, and smiles at him, and he wants to believe she already knows but if she does not, the shame will poison him. “You were proud of me five minutes ago.”

“It is not that. I am proud. I… wish to see you excel. Even at my own expense. Especially at—“ He stops. Closes his babbling and traitorous mouth, a moment after its betrayal.

“Especially?”

It is not proper to answer. It is shameful to answer. But now she is asking, and Lord Thanos has said that it is wrong to lie unless the circumstance is dire. How can it be so when he has known Proxima for long years? To lie to her is shameful too.

“You have grown very beautiful,” he says. “And strong.”

She steps closer. He wishes she would not. It makes him wish to kiss her, and surely he cannot do that. How had he thought of telling her, all those hours he had rehearsed it in his mind? He cannot remember. Only that the things he’d thought of, whatever they were, sounded elegant and flattering, and nothing like… that.

“Oh, is that it?” Her red eyes are bright with mischief. Or so he hopes. He could not live if it was scorn. “I thought so…”

“You… thought so?”

“When I threw you down, you looked at me and smiled.” She tilts her head and smirks at him. “And… well. You were…”

He flinches, backing toward the wall, glancing around for some way to hide his movement. So, she had noticed. _Of course, she did! She knows you as well as you know yourself._

“How long have you been not telling me about this?” She is smiling. He knows her well also, and does not think that look means mockery, but…

He stops inching backwards. If he’s not going to lie, neither should he retreat. “A long time. I… feared confessing it.” He looks down at his gangly body, his pale and mottled skin. His wrinkles, a sign of age in other species. And his face is not much better. It is pointed and thin, and his fangs are yellow and jagged, not white and smooth like those of elegant beings. “I feared that you would deem me ugly, and not worth your attention.”

She laughs and looks him over. He burns with embarrassment, and when she speaks, he hears rough amusement in her voice. “You are ugly.”

The ground tilts under his feet. He wonders for a wild moment if something has gone wrong with the ship’s gravity. But his heart is racing, and his mouth is dry. All at once he remembers how to slink away and hide.

“I… I am sorry,” he stammers. He hears his own voice as though from a great distance. “I will not bother you then.” He is close to the door already. All he must do is go through it and return to his quarters. And all will be as it was, and he can pretend he has never—

A hand presses hard into the wall near his head, barring his way. “Where do you think you’re going?”

She is too close. Her face is inches from his, and her smile has become horrible, and he cannot look at it. “I… if that is how you feel, then I… I understand. I will leave now, and not speak of it again.”

She laughs, in the way she does when she is up to some mischief. She cups his chin in her hand, and he is so stunned at it he forgets to keep looking down.

She is still grinning. “I said you’re ugly. I didn’t say it mattered.”

She leans in, and her lips meet his.

###

When their lips part he breathes raggedly. He does not like the loss. But, when she pulls away, she is smiling and the paint on her lips is smeared. He remembers the first time he saw her with blue lips. He had asked what it meant and she said a warrior earns the right to paint her lips only after her first kill.

And now those lips have left their mark on him as well. “I…” he tries to say. But no other words will come, so he wraps his arms around her back and splays his hands over the contours of her muscles. She hisses at him, a little, but, now that he has calmed, he can hear it end in a laugh.

His fingers find the fastener of her shirt. He looks once at her for confirmation and draws it down. The cloth peels from her flesh and he slips his hand where it has parted. Her skin is warm under his fingers. He moves his hand over it. His fingertips find the smooth ridge of a scar.

He sighs, caught between pride and concern. A scarred warrior is a warrior who has survived. Yet sometimes she is reckless. Too eager to let her enemy injure her. She welcomes the pain too much.

But then, they all do, in their own ways. Had he himself not savored pain from her, staring from the place where she’d thrown him?

 _We are the same,_ he thinks, and smiles.

She gasps a little and leans into his touch. He purrs, an echoing sound from deep within his throat. He has praised her so many times, in training and in battle. To know now that he has pleased her fills his heart with pride and sends heat whirling through his belly.

And other places she might notice. But it seems she’s seen already, and that is welcome here. He slides his fingers over her nipple and she lets out a low, ragged breath.

He looks at her. He has imagined this more times than he would ever admit. Her skin is alabaster, and against its cool white her scars are gray. Her nipples are gray also, hard under his fingers already, and he wonders with a little thrill of shame whether her lips will bear the same dark blush.

He feels her hand on his cheek and remembers he has permission. He needs not feel embarrassment at wondering such things.

He can only purr at her again. If he spoke, he would say nothing sensible, only thank her over and over.

She laughs and leans into his hand. Then she pulls away, as though she’s just remembered to be stern. “Let me see you too,” she says.

He blinks. He is ugly, as he said and she agreed. His robes and hood protect him, and a shudder goes through him at the thought of losing their protection. But she has asked it of him, and there is little he would refuse her in most cases…

And there is nothing now. He slips them off and lays them aside as carefully as he can manage without leaving her waiting.

Under the robes he wears a suit for sparring, tight-fitting and protective like hers. He waits a moment to see if she will touch him as he touched her, but then remembers he was given a command, and unzips it and lets it fall.

She smiles, a greedy little smirk. He does not know how that can be. How she can like the sight of him, all wrinkled skin and gangly limbs. But like him, she was taught not to lie.

And that means she approves, and has not pretended it. A bright heat courses through him. To slip his flesh free of his undergarments and let her see that too is simple enough when she is smiling thus.

She rewards him, finishing the task he’d set himself and drawing down the fasteners he’d left. She casts aside the suit like an old skin and pulls off her undergarments without fanfare or pretense, as though she knows what she intends and they are in her way. His face flushes. She cannot know much more than him, not when they stay on the ship and keep to themselves, and have no opportunity he can see to try these things. And yet she is not shy with him. _She has imagined this too._ The thought sends a thrill through him.

He looks her over. Her body is lean and muscular, her blue-white skin crisscrossed with scars. His fingers ache to touch them, even as his mind fills with the advice he’s given in the practice rooms so many times before. But she wears them without shame, just the same as she stands naked before him without embarrassment.

He was right about her lips. The flesh of her mound is shaved clean of hair, save one small tuft of blue, and under it he sees a hint of slate-gray flesh. His hands twitch with the desire to touch her, but she turns away. “Follow me,” she says.

She laughs a little. “No, wait…” She stops herself and turns around. She straightens her posture and stares ahead, her expression cold, as it is when she leads the Chitauri in battle. He shivers, though the heat in his belly only grows.

“ _< Follow,>” _she says in Father’s language. A barked command, as though this is a battlefield and he is one of the soldiers. Not a mentor, nor even a peer, but one of a hive-minded, teeming throng. He can do nothing but obey.

Her bedroom is like any other on the ship. Small, sparsely decorated, lit by a strip of incandescent material embedded in the ceiling. The light it casts is cold and unflattering, and for a moment he hesitates. But she has ordered him, and he must behave properly. She growls another order and he lies down, his flesh stirring anew at the sound of her voice.

She does not attend to him immediately. He trains his gaze on the ceiling and tamps down his curiosity. He hears her rummage through some closet or cabinet. She emerges holding a small packet of lubricant, likely pilfered from the medbay— _how did she steal that from Maw’s medbay?—_ and smiles at him, too shyly. “I don’t know if it’s the best thing for this purpose, but I wanted to touch you, and I figured it would…”

She’s always been the one who knows these things. Her people had a god of fertility, and while she had been consecrated to some other deity she’d seen and heard about the rites of the others. That wasn’t much—Thanos had claimed her as a child—but compared to her equally young siblings she’d been a fount of knowledge about bodies and their workings.

And now she hesitates, wondering what he would like best. “It will serve,” he says, a catch in his voice.

She smiles and looks down at him. He wonders what her people’s bodies look like, blinks back a new flush of shame, then opens his eyes to look back at her.

He cannot imagine wanting anything else.

The coolness of the lubricant startles him and he twitches. Then her hand closes around him and he knows only warmth. He lets out a shaky breath. Her hand moves over him and it becomes a moan, low and echoing.

His hips cant of their own volition and he wills himself to stillness.

“ _< Good,>” _she tells him.

He looks up at the sound of her voice, his movement automatic. She’s still smiling, a sharp little grin. As though she has been hunting him, and finally caught her prey, and must gloat over it.

He feels weightless. “ _< Please,>” _he says.

She chuckles and begins to move again. Her movements are slow and deliberate. A sweet and searing heat rises in his flesh, and he does not know which he wants more: to see her hand around him and her red eyes bright with triumph, or to close his eyes and know only what her touch makes him feel. He narrows his eyes and growls in indecision.

Mercifully, she isn’t deliberate for long. She has always been thus: swift and bold, and she moves faster now. His nerves sing. He tries not to move with her but thrusts into her hand anyway, the blind devotion of a dumb and faithful beast.

He has no wish to be anything else, so long as he is hers.

And it seems that his desire pleases her. She hisses, the snarl of challenge she gives when circling an opponent, and he cants his hips again, unsure whether she wants him to move or will punish him for it, but sure he would welcome both.

She looks at him. Her painted lips curl into a grin. A moment of fear shocks his senses. The warmth of her hand on him is an unbearable heat and he trembles. But she only pumps her hand over him again, forceful and decisive, and he cannot help but follow where she guides him. He closes his eyes and groans, spilling his release into her hand, feeling drops of it fall onto his chest.

It should embarrass him, his wrinkled gray flesh spattered with his own mess. But he floats in the bliss of his afterglow, and all he can think is that she drew this from him because she wanted to. And no shame can touch him, laid out like this because she wished it. He lets out an echoing purr and looks up at her with half-closed eyes.

“ _< Good?>_” she says, and chuckles.

He does not trust himself to recall words. But she has asked a question, and he should obey. Must obey, after she has given him so much. “ _< I… you…>”_

“I liked touching you. I liked… seeing you let go. Because I wanted you to.”

“ _< Yes.>”_

But she has not had her pleasure. And that is not right, not when all he feels is bliss. He sits up and forces his eyes open, willing away the haze that wants to claim him. It can wait. He belongs to her.

She laughs again and holds up her hand, slick with lubricant and his effusions. “Messy thing. Look at you.”

He looks down at himself and shakes his head. He has nothing to say for himself. She smirks and wipes her hand on his thigh. He flushes with embarrassment but would rather she have smeared it on his body than done anything else. “I will clean it. But I… I have not touched you.”

He reaches out for her, greatly daring. But he must repay what she has given.

“Wait,” she says. He stills.

To his dismay, she stands. He rumbles at the loss.

“Don’t worry. I’m coming back. I want… I want your mouth on me,” she says, and her cheeks flush bluish gray, and he is not sure if it means shyness or desire.

“ _< Yes,>_” he says. He is not sure how it is done, not exactly, but he has dreamed of it many times, and hopes it is enough.

She grins and her eyes gleam. “But I should clean my hands. So that I can show you.”

A thrill of heat crackles through his flesh at that, spent though he is. The Maw explained anatomy to them all, of course, and common variations in similar species. But it was Proxima who had known what those things did, and who had answered the questions none of them would ever ask their eldest brother.

“Wait for me,” she says again, and walks away.

He does not like her absence. But alone with his thoughts and the memory of her hands, he finds the ache is bearable. He drifts, his mind quiet. She will return, and use him, and he needs think of nothing else. He closes his eyes and listens to the sounds of her at the sink, the flow of the water, the footsteps as she moves to dry her hands and walks back to where he lies.

“ _< Hey,>_” she says. An informal word that should sound wrong in Father’s language. But it is a command, however informal. He purrs a little and opens his eyes.

She’s standing close. He reaches out for her again but she shakes her head. He growls and lets his hands fall.

She reaches down with a hand and lifts up the folds of her lips. With her other hand she spreads the skin apart, so he can better see. A small gray nub of flesh peeks out at him. “You see?” she says.

He nods. It is small, and while he would have searched with vigor, it helps to see what he would be searching for. Seeing it, his mouth waters.

“In some of her images, the fertility goddess is drawn like this.” She laughs and lowers her hands again. “I think she meant to give instructions.”

He laughs too, and thinks to himself that she is wise.

Proxima straddles his face, and his flesh stirs at the sharp musk of her scent. He tilts his head to kiss her thigh, then with great care opens his mouth to nip at the sensitive flesh with his fangs. None of them are strangers to pain.

She gasps a little and lets out a ragged breath. Then she growls, a low contented sound from somewhere deep in her throat. He answers with a sigh, and licks and bites again.

But he should not tease for long, and she lowers herself down as if she knows his thought. She has always been direct, and never had the patience Corvus has, or the Maw, or even Nebula. And it’s clear that she liked toying with him, and will want her pleasure. He follows the scent to its source, kissing and licking, and extending his tongue as she moves her hips to press against him.

Her wetness smears his lips and cheeks. Her scent fills his nostrils. He moans at it and wraps his hands around her waist, wanting to press her closer. She hisses and he moves, slipping his tongue inside her. She groans and twitches against him, tilting her hips again, and he withdraws to lave his tongue over the nub of hidden flesh she showed him.

If he can find it. She snarls something, a mix of desire and frustration, and grinds hard against his face, as if to say that if he will not make himself useful, then she will use him as she wills. He flushes with embarrassment, half wanting to redeem himself, half craving to be used as though he is nothing.

When she moves against him, he laps at her flesh again, and it must be that he has done it properly now. She freezes, her growl becoming a low moan, and presses her flesh against him, smothering. He redoubles his efforts, wanting to breathe but wanting this more. His grip on her waist tightens and he hears her gasp and realizes his claws might have drawn blood.

She doesn’t seem to mind. She twitches against him, crying out, and presses her flesh against his mouth. He feels her shudder and holds her there, her flesh and scent filling his senses. Her body locks and then releases. He feels the pulse of it against his lips and sighs, floating, as if he knows nothing else and has no other wish.

She pulls away, and he tilts his head to fill his lungs with a long breath as she slides down to lay atop him. She kisses his mouth, and he parts his lips to let her worry them a little with her teeth. _“ <Good,>” _she says when their lips finally part.

“Proxima…” he tries. But what can he say? What is there for this?

She reaches down to touch his cheek. He leans into the touch as he remembers a pet might, back in the mist of his life before Thanos.

 _“ <Dear one,>” _she says, and smiles.

He feels himself flush. “You cannot say that!”

She chuckles and waves a hand. “It doesn’t matter. Not here.” She tilts her head. “Or do you think I should call you ‘Teacher?’” She scoffs.

And yet he is her teacher. No matter how it felt to hear her call him that. “No life is worth more than any other. Father has taught us.”

She tilts her head. “He has. But this is between us.”

“I cannot—“

She shakes her head. “Father says it to Gamora. He calls her _< ‘little one.’>_”

“That… that is so.”

“Then I will call you what I want,” she says, stubborn and childish.

It warms him. Not the bright seat of his lust, but something… peaceful. Something he has long felt around her but knew no words for. Not until she gave them just now.

 _“ <My dear one,>”_ he purrs, reaching up to wrap his arms around her.


End file.
